Month: February 2018

Lord, you are become our refuge, from generation to generation; from age to age, you are.

A series of Scriptural bits and pieces caught my attention today. The first (above) is the entrance antiphon to the daily mass (Tues. 1st Week, Lent). It’s that part at the end, “you are.” This little cherry on the Scriptural sundae occurs in any number of places, both in the Bible and in the ceremonies of the Church: that most basic statement, “Lord, you are.”

Of course, this confession brings us right back to Moses receiving the Holy Name of God, “I AM WHO AM.” With that name, God identifies himself as over and above everything. He is indeed the God of Being itself, uncontainable within the confines of the universe. As St. Anselm put it, he is, “that than which nothing can be greater.”

Today’s Psalm Response also caught my eye: “From all their distress, God rescues the just.” This based on the text of Psalm 34, oculi Domini super iustos et aures eius in precem eorum. “The eyes of the Lord are on the just and his ears are for their cries. The just are those who live in right relationship with God. They recognize that “He is,” and they respond accordingly.

This may not seem like much of a revelation, but it touches on a major challenge for evangelization… really, a challenge for people generally.

What do I mean?

There’s another MAJOR Lenten text, Psalm 51, the Miserere… so named for its first phrase, “Have mercy on me.” P.S. Listening to Allegri’s setting of this psalm will change your life… but I digress. Psalm 51:7 says, ecce enim in iniquitatibus conceptus sum et in peccatis concepit me mater mea. “Behold, in iniquity was I conceived, in sin did my mother conceive me.”

How few people believe in sin anymore… And even if they believe in sin, they rarely believe in their sins… and almost never in the idea that from the time of Adam and Eve, we have been -let’s say “genetically”- disposed toward sin. This phrase has been in my mind in light of a family funeral we recently observed in my family: the reality that we have, along with all the good, a heritage of sin.

On the flip side, how many people really pay attention to miracles. They’re real… we can prove it. Sometimes, we even have video evidence that one can look up and watch from half a world away. And yet… how few people live in relationship to these supreme “goods” that we call miracles? Again, at my family funeral, I thought about how often my dad has questioned, “With all these miracles, why do you think people don’t practice religion?”

What I want to touch on in all of this is “Being.” Or maybe it’s better said, “substantial reality vs. insubstantial fantasy.” In a city… in a world… where folks are not in relationship with the great reality of sin… nor in a relationship with the reality of goodness (i.e. miracles), what are people in relation with? If God is the great “I AM,” can one really claim to be in a right relationship with him while denying such vast swaths of that which is (evil and goodness in this case)?

It’s something for us to think about this Lent both as individuals and as evangelizers. In my experience, a big first step in bringing people to Christ is bringing them to grapple with reality… with all that is… That starts with goodness in things like Revelation, doctrine, beauty, love. It also include grappling with the reality of evil. The First Step, after all, is admitting that one has a problem.

Only when one is in real contact with all that is… can one begin to be in right relationship with Him who is. Lord, you are become our refuge, from generation to generation; from age to age, you are.

Yesterday I made my quarterly trip to Annapolis to get my oil changed. “Why,” one might ask, “do you go all the way to Annapolis to get your oil changed?” When I first bought my car, a friend of a friend connected me with a dealership out there. Aside from the fact that they do great service work, this particular dealer offers free shuttle service into the heart of Maryland’s historic capital, and I’ve gotten into the habit of making a day of it. Drop the car, ride into a charming town, enjoy some sights, the water, some lunch, and then head home when the car is ready. Truly, it’s the nicest oil change experience one could hope for.

Yesterday, I stopped in for lunch at a relatively new restaurant on Main Street, Preserve. Outfitted in proper HGTV style, Preserve is contemporary in so many ways… [supposedly] reclaimed wood adorns the walls, punctuated by various objects d’art meant to make you think they were casually dropped there by longtime residents, when actually they were picked with careful study. Faux industrial-style lighting gives the place a pleasant glow and the front windows are ingeniously installed to look classic, for the winter, and then completely open like a garage door to the street in summer. In so many ways, the place is millennial to the core. And yet…

At the core of Preserve’s dining experience is something very ancient: pickling. As the name indicates, Preserve is all about food that has been carefully kept and even enhanced by various processes long after harvest time has passed. For centuries, this classical practice has used vinegars, oils, and other liquids to forestall death and rot so that families could have nutritious foods through the cold months. As I say, it’s an ancient process, but ever new. Rock star Swedish chef Magnus Nilsson (Featured in several wonderful foodie documentaries like, Netflix “Chef’s Table”) has put the practice back on the map as he strives to introduce the world to traditional Scandinavian cuisine… and given the climate in his native land, one can easily imagine how important preservation of food from the growing months is.

As with so many dimensions of culinary culture, preservation is not just about the utilitarian act of keeping food for the winter. People attach to it all the joys that humanity can bring so that the experience, like the nutrients in the food, remains fresh and invigorating. In my family’s ancestral home of Capua, for example, families will have whole block parties for canning summer tomatoes. Songs are invented, poems recited, family histories passed on while children play and those old enough to work all help each other extend summer life through the canning process.

Looking at Preservation through eyes of faith doesn’t take too much imagination. The New Testament is replete with examples of this preservation process which the Church calls, “tradition.” From the Latin tra-ditio, it literally earns “to pass across or hand on.” In II Timothy 1:6 Paul advises his disciple to fan into flame and hand on the gift he received when Paul laid hands (i.e. ordained) him. Jesus likewise never bashes the old, but preserves and fulfills it for the purposes of the New Covenant. He himself observes Mosaic law and practices. Indeed today, though there was no need for it, he is presented by his parents to the Father in the Temple (Lk 2:22-40). At several points he cures people by the grace of the New Covenant then tells them to go and observe the rituals of the Old (e.g. “Go show yourselves to the priests.” Lk 17:14. Or “therefore all that they say and tell you, do and observe…” Mt 23:3).

Popular culture tends to abhor the idea of preservation. Our inborn American sense of progress (which sometimes suffers from the heresy of progressivism) suggests that the old must always burn to fuel the new. We chalk it up to our revolutionary foundation, but even here, careful examination may reveal the faint odor of vinegar… and the preservation process. What is our Constitution based on if not the Magna Carta. When James Madison locked himself in his library to begin drafting the document, he was accompanied by 2,000 volumes of Greco-Roman and English law. Even the most revolutionary progress owes something of its substance to preservation and handing on of what came before. Perhaps what we as modern Americans, and modern Catholics, need to do is rediscover the JOY of preservation… like those families canning tomatoes back in Capua. Or… to give another more contemporary example… like St. John Paul II quietly handing on Polish music, drama and poetry in secret student meetings even as the communist guards tried their best to squelch all remnants of Polish identity.

Preservation of culture, or of law or of faith doesn’t have to be a musty museum process; in fact it shouldn’t be. It can be a joyous event that hands on the light of life and defeats death! Think about that this week, or the next time you munch on a pickle… or if you happen to be in Annapolis getting your oil changed.